Backwards Flag Brewing is Dedicated to Serving Veterans

Torie Fisher, Owner of Backwards Flag Brewing Co., explains how her military service and passion for brewing beer led her to create a brewing company dedicated to helping veterans.

9/9/17 #615

Excerpt:

"Welcome to Life & Living I'm Joanna Gagis. This next segment combines two of our favorite things to talk about on this show, giving back and brewing beer. With me now is Torie Fisher, Founder of Backwards Flag Brewing Company, that's in Forked River New Jersey, right. Yes. Down in Ocean County. Yes. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Love the concept of your company. I think for our viewers to really understand it they need to start with an understanding of who you and the military service that you offered to our country, first, thank you for your service to our country. Thank you for your support. Tell me about your time serving in the United States Army. Well I did 13 years total, that was a mixture of active duty time and Army National Guard. So I joined when I was 18, I joined the Army right out of High School. I got stationed in Germany. When my plane landed in Germany they told us, hey welcome to Germany your units already in Iraq you'll be going there next. I think I spent about 3 weeks total in Germany. So the first phone call home to tell me parents “Hey I made it to Germany safe” I also got to tell them I was going to Iraq. And so a few weeks later I started my deployment in Iraq. I turned 19 there. I came home, I spent a little more time in active duty and then I got out briefly and it just really wasn't working for me so then I ended up joining the National Guard. And that, I think maybe a month after I joined the Guard … I … maybe it was two or three months after I joined the Guard I was back in Iraq for my second deployment and this time as a helicopter crew chief. So then I ended up doing that for about 7 or 8 years with them and somewhere in there when things started to whine down, I started making other life plans and wanting to do something a little bit different. What were some of those life plans? Um, I kinda was looking at maybe starting a business of some sort. I had always enjoyed food and drink. I think just from traveling the globe, gaining an appreciation for those things so everything I wanted to do what geared towards that. Do you think the military geared you towards entrepreneurship? Yes, defiantly. Do you think as a female there was something about that that was unique? Do you think, well I want to bring it back to the beer company too because I, I think you are in a unique position especially in New Jersey to be a female entrepreneur in a brewing..."